


Thou Unknown I Know

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, POV Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-28
Updated: 2007-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The more she thinks about it, the more she knows she can't just pretend she doesn't know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thou Unknown I Know

**Author's Note:**

> Kat was the girl from "Asylum."

The Saturday after that night at the asylum, Kat asks her dad to go shooting again, starts spending her time down at the range, shotgun smooth and cool in her hands, the world disappearing as she focuses on the target, small and far away. She gets good at it, swinging the shotgun up, easy and sure, finger on the trigger and pull, automatic in the space between one breath and the next. The clay pigeons shatter in the air, one after another, shards scattering like spilled salt. Dad wants her to start shooting competitively. She has no interest in that, but can't explain why. She doesn't answer her parents' questions about the sudden appearance of a pentacle around her neck a month later, the sachets of dried herbs in her bedroom, the lines of salt poured across windowsills and thresholds.

Her parents know _something_ happened, and she feels bad about keeping secrets, about the worried glances they shoot her way when they think she doesn't notice. She spends a lot of time now lying to the school psychologist, pretending the world is the same as it was before that night, before she learned that ghosts are real, and that there are people who hunt them.

Before she decided she could be one of them.

She starts going to the library during her free periods, during lunch, after classes are over, reads about the history of the town, the asylum, then branches out, reading folklore and books on the occult, stuff she's surprised to find out in the open on high school library shelves, though she guesses everyone thinks it's all lies anyway.

She knows it's not, though she's still sorting fact from fiction, and she can't stop thinking about what that means, for her, for Gavin, for the world.

Gavin doesn't want to talk about what happened, tries to shut her up with kisses and touches. At first, she lets him, breathless and aching for what he's trying to give her, but even after the sharp ache subsides, unsatisfied ("Yeah, Gavin, it was good," she says, and he smiles like he's won a gold medal or something; she ruffles his hair affectionately), he won't discuss it, doesn't understand why she wants to ("Can't we just forget about it?" and then, "Is it because you thought those guys were hot?" and finally, "You're weirding me out, Kat."). She knows it's over when she hears him saying to one of his friends, "Yeah, she's hot, but she's kind of psycho. Believes in ghosts and shit." And they laugh, like Gavin wasn't there that night, didn't see everything she saw, didn't get kissed by a ghost himself.

She holds her head up, tells herself she doesn't care, and it's not like they were going to be together forever anyway. She was always going to move on to bigger and better things.

She throws herself into her research--learns about the spirit-repelling properties of salt, silver, and iron; the meaning of certain signs and symbols carved into wood above the doorway or drawn onto the stone steps of the house beneath the welcome mat for protection; and the clean, destructive power of fire.

She doesn't hang out at the mall very often anymore; she saves her money, hopes the guy on eBay isn't scamming her when she pays for the EMF meter. She scours the internet for signs of other hunters, people like Dean and Sam. Has a moment of serious doubt when she comes across an obituary for Dean, a big story about a serial killer in St. Louis with his face and his name, dated months before she met him. But she knows what she saw that night, knows what she's read and learned since then, and if ghosts are real, it's not hard to believe there are other, even more dangerous things prowling around out in the dark.

She remembers Dean's words--If someone tells you a house is haunted, don't go in.\--and wonders if she should take that advice. But the more she thinks about it, the more she knows she can't just pretend she doesn't know, can't let other people get hurt when she could do something to help them. Can't live with that kind of cowardice prickling under her skin like the cold brush of the ghost's words against her ear.

She pays more attention to the news now, and when she hears about the mysterious drownings in the Pecatonica, only about twenty miles away, she packs her bag with salt, lighter fluid, and the EMF meter. She slips a small flashlight into her pocket, along with some extra batteries, and the three-pack of Bic lighters she picked up at the newsstand a couple of weeks ago. She slides the shotgun, sleek and deadly, onto the floor in the backseat. It makes her feel safe.

She slides behind the wheel of her car, takes a deep breath, and heads into the darkness.

end

~*~

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Opening Words" by Denise Levertov.


End file.
